GamerDad

txa1265 · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 10:29 pm Post subject: To rent or to own ... and why?

I know I'm *really* late to this game, but today I rented my first game - Dead to Rights Reckoning for the PSP. (I had rented a Scooby Doo GameBoy game for the kids last year, but that felt different). Being a long-time PC gamer, I have always accepted the fact that if I want to play a game, I buy it. So when I came back from Disney I dutifully shelled out $40 for Coded Arms, a crappy PSP game that lasted a few hours and that I'll never play again. But I found out that the second closest Blockbuster had PSP games for rent, and decided to take a look - they are all there, and for pretty cheap too.

This made me think - how do all of you decide to rent or buy? And what other thoughts are there on renting?

Mike

Gamermum · Joined: 07 Jul 2003 Posts: 2036 Location: Garland, Texas.

Well, from an entirely selfish and self interested point of view, as my hubby works as a games artist, I'd prefer it if you all bought the games Wink

txa1265 · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:27 pm Post subject:

SiW · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:39 pm Post subject:

I rarely rent games. My reasoning is this - I don't have a massive budget for gaming, so why spend 4 or 5 bucks to rent a game for 3 days when I could buy something for 15? You can come back and say "But Simon! What about renting brand new games that you couldn't buy for less than $50?!" and I answer "I feel like if I'm renting a game I might buy, I'm just throwing money away".

momGamer · Joined: 03 Sep 2003 Posts: 2552 Location: Seattle, WA

I use rentals for several reasons:
- Vetting things for content that are borderline enough that I don't know about it in advance.
- Limiting consumption of certain games that I don't mind if they go through them once but I don't want on continuous play in the house due to questionable or seriously annoying content.
- Budget issues; I have on a couple of occaisions rented something just because I couldn't afford to buy it right now and I really couldn't stand to wait until the price went down or the budget got straightened out.

I do the same thing with movies. We have a category we call "Rent Once" and it's used for things that are ratings exceptions that I've decided to make, or for stuff that's ratings-okay but annoying to me or I just don't want them to watch for three months straight.
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Klonoa · Joined: 25 Aug 2003 Posts: 2461 Location: Pac-Land

Back in the NES and SNES days when I was a kid and had a limited income, I rented TONS of games. This was before Blockbuster came along, so renting games at the local Pay Less Video was much, much cheaper than buying them. Nowadays, I buy games usually instead of renting them. You can wait for the price of a game to go down so that it's not much more expensive than renting. Plus, Blockbuster tends to only carry the most popular, well-known titles, so the only way to play my kind of weird quirky games like Cubivore or Graffiti Kingdom is to buy them. So that's usually what I do now. --Cary
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txa1265 · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 6:25 am Post subject:

Stark · Joined: 11 Jul 2005 Posts: 108 Location: washington, dc

I've just started using gamefly and buying games that i'd like to have for a long time
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m_hael · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 9:23 am Post subject:

I used to rent - then I realised that most games I'd rent I really didn't like too much.. those I'd really wanted normally came with their own peer recommendations so.. I saved myself the $$$ and stopped.

I've played 2 games ALL this year. Sad

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Tater-Dad · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:10 am Post subject:

Brett Hollembeak · Joined: 11 Jan 2004 Posts: 77 Location: Kingsville, Texas

I rarely rent, but as with DVD's, it's mostly a matter of my inability to get the rentals back on time. Netflix solved that particular problem with DVDs, and I should seriously consider GameFly.

I just haven't gotten around to it.

Since I buy my games to keep, I have a little collection of "turkeys" that I've bought before the reviews came in (I bought the hype, and then I bought the game!)

I hate spending full dollar on a game that is just ok, or slightly below ok.

I can see rental as a full-length "demo" that would persuade me to plunk down my money for the whole game. I get the feeling, though, that there aren't a whole lot of games that would engage my interest enough from the rental for me to purchase. Also, a lot of good games are getting shorter. "Riddick" is a prime example of that. I bought that game, but I should have rented it. It didn't last long, but the money was all up on the screen (so to speak) and it was very good. I haven't played it again, since I blew through it once. Did I get my money's worth? That's debatable. It should have been either more challenging, or longer, IMO.

SiW · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:17 pm Post subject:

m_hael · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:18 pm Post subject:

Tater-Dad · Posted: Thu Jul 28, 2005 4:19 pm Post subject:

actually if I could get enough spare cash a month I would do both, the dvd & game service from Blockbuster. I'd still prolly buy dvd's but I'd buy a lot less games, but I'd play a lot more games too...
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Yegolev · Joined: 16 Jul 2003 Posts: 2314 Location: The ATL

I buy games for two reasons. I have more money than time, and I like to collect games. I don't even buy used games anymore, because the occasion that I have problems cause a serious derailment of my tight schedule.
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